East Lansing City Council races features eight candidates, numerous issues
EAST LANSING — Eight candidates are vying for three open seats in Tuesday's election amid a political landscape that's changed considerably since voters last chose City Council members two years ago.
Numerous city staffers have departed, including longtime City Manager George Lahanas, who received a severance package worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Also among those departing were numerous department heads or assistant department heads.
Going back a little further, there hasn't been much stability in the elected ranks, either. The city has had four mayors since 2019. And the makeup of the council has changed since two members resigned in protest over the firing of the longtime city attorney in 2020, while a third member resigned to take a judicial appointment.
The 2023 candidates include a former councilman who lost a re-election bid in 2019 and a former East Lansing mayor and councilman who resigned in protest over the firing of the city attorney in 2019.
Two of the seats up for grabs are now held by Mayor Ron Bacon and Mayor Pro Tem Jessy Gregg, who chose not to seek re-election this fall. The other is occupied by Councilman Noel Garcia, who was appointed in January to serve the remainder of a term held by Lisa Babcock after she was elected a district judge. Garcia is running for a full, four-year term.
The other five candidates have been active in local affairs, but haven't held a council seat.
City voters also will weigh in on three ballot issues on Tuesday.
Here are the council candidates, listed in reverse alphabetical order:
Christopher Wardell
Wardell, 47, is a first-time candidate for City Council, but is no stranger to campaigning, having worked in the state House of Representatives for about eight years. He is now chief of staff and legislative director for state Rep. Kevin Coleman, D-Westland, and previously worked for former state Reps. Cynthia Johnson and Alex Garza.
He also is a former journalist and serves on the East Lansing Arts Commission, as vice chair of the Michigan Disability Rights Coalition and the Bailey Community Association's board.
Wardell said he'd like to see the city bolster its police and firefighting forces and make infrastructure more accessible to people with disabilities. A traffic study wouldn't be a bad idea, and bringing back neighborhood police patrols to reduce speeding is on his wish list, he said.
"The police force is down; firefighters are stretched thin, too," he said. "Those are some of the needs I want to address through an equitable lens."
The city "definitely needs" affordable housing for people just starting out, he said.
"It's just a matter of finding where to put it and who are the developers who come in," he said. "Are they coming in with good intentions or are they bad actors? ... It's just a matter of striking a balance, and I don't think we have that right now."
Wardell isn't beating the drum about the staffing turnover.
"Everyone's aware there's been a lot of turnover," he said. "My whole focus is moving forward, listening to the people, being transparent, giving everyone my phone number so they can call me if they have an issue."
Kerry Ebersole Singh
Singh, 47, is chief talent solutions & engagement officer for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and works with businesses, colleges and universities and local communities to attract and retain talent in the state.
She previously worked in other capacities in state government, including the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity office, serving as chair of MI STEM Council.
Singh is married to state Sen. Sam Singh, D-East Lansing. She is a past treasurer of the Harrison Meadows Neighborhood Association and a former member of the Michigan Municipal League Foundation board.
"I just didn't see East Lansing where it needs to be as a community, and I have collected a set of skills, mainly on a statewide basis, that I thought could help," Singh said. "I really want to see East Lansing setting best practices and being a model community."
Singh said she's "uniquely qualified" to help stabilize the city's workforce.
"We really need to build a new strategic plan for our community, including robust community engagement," she said. "And we have to ensure that key stakeholders ... are part of that practice."
"Smart" economic development and building on assets like green spaces and parks also is important, she said.
Joshua Ramirez-Roberts
At 22, Ramirez-Roberts is the youngest candidate in the field. He grew up in East Lansing, attended Lansing Catholic High School and recently graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in social relations and policy. He is now a student teacher at East Lansing High School.
Ramirez-Roberts said he could bring valuable perspective to a City Council made up entirely of homeowners who are making decisions about rental properties.
"I grew up in East Lansing, and I'm also a student, so I'm kind of able to bridge that age and perspective gap," he said. "I can make decisions that don't cause long-term harm."
Despite his age, Ramirez-Roberts said he doesn't lack experience. He's volunteered in political campaigns since he was 16 and worked in the state Legislature for two years, first as an intern and then as a legislative aide. He served on the University Student Commission and the Community Development Advisory Committee and sits on the board of the Bailey Community Association, according his bio.
It's hard to get around the controversies swirling around town over the past few years, he noted.
"What everyone notices is there was certainly a lack of leadership, the firing of the city manager, the investigations going on, and I think there's been a real disintegration of trust," he said. "As a long-term resident, that was kind of painful to watch."
Ramirez-Roberts said the city budget needs some restructuring, and he'd like to work with business owners and residents to make downtown better. He also said there needs to be more regional discussion about development and public safety.
"Volence has started to spill over to East Lansing," he said. "East Lansing is not a closed system."
Mark Meadows
Meadows, 76, is a former East Lansing mayor whose two stints on council bookended his six years in the state House of Representatives. After leaving the Legislature, he returned to council in 2015, won re-election in 2019 and resigned in July 2020 after a majority voted to fire longtime city attorney Tom Yeadon.
He said he came to regret his decision to resign and opted to run again in 2023 after witnessing the massive turnover at City Hall and becoming disturbed by "a lack of communication between the council and citizens about things that were happening,"
"We lost a tremendous amount of institutional memory in a very, very short period of time," Meadows said. "You always lose some, but I thought that was a very dangerous thing ... Losing that type of experience and talent is something that really puts the community in an unstable position."
City residents are concerned about what they view as a lack of transparency by council members, Meadows said.
"At almost every door, they've talked about (Lahanas' departure)," he said. "They are very unhappy about the response from City Council, who just said, 'We want to go in a different direction.' Nobody knows what that means."
Having more experience on the council will be helpful as the city continues to deal with unfunded liabilities regarding pension and healthcare for retirees and navigates development challenges, he said.
"I enjoy hard work, so if voters elect me, they are going to get somebody who is prepared, reads the documents that are part of the packet, participates strongly in discussions about the future of the city and always puts the community first."
Rebecca Kasen
Kasen, 39, is executive director of the Women's Center of Greater Lansing. She's also the biological mother of two young children and has an active foster care license. This is her first run for elective office.
"I am an expert at nothing, and because I know that, I know how to find the actual experts," she said. "We should be bringing in people from school planning, engineering and what not, and really working with all the experts. We are so lucky to have MSU, and we need to be utilizing them more.
Kasen said she has a unique perspective because her husband, Raphael Kasen, worked in the city planning department before leaving and working for the city as a consultant.
"It was very toxic," she said. "There was an in-group and an out-group, and anyone who was just trying to do their job really wasn’t allowed to do it. Things are finally starting to move forward now, and I can help (City Manager Robert) Belleman market the city as a great employer."
She noted that city services haven't been impacted by the revolving door at city hall.
Kasen said she is focused on filling a need for what she described as "middle-class" housing. She also said she's good at balancing budgets.
"I want to bring a voice of reason, a voice of stepping back, instead of feeding into rhetoric," she said. "Let's get all the parties to the table and find a solution."
Noel Garcia Jr.
Garcia, 57, was appointed to the seat vacated by Babcock early this year and is running for his first four-year term. He retired as a lieutenant from the Lansing Police Department nearly a decade ago and now is a career tech teacher with the Ingham Intermediate School District. He sat on the city's Independent Police Oversight Commission before being appointed to council.
Lahanas' departure and the massive staff exodus predated Garcia's time on council. He said the city needs to take care of its employees but needs to move on from the controversy.
"The people who have been stepping up to fill those voids have been amazing," he said. "They have not hesitated to to step up to the plate. The other candidates in this race are not seeing that."
Garcia said the city needs to do a staffing study.
"Police and fire are understaffed, and that's dangerous, in my opinion," he said.
There's a need for low-income housing, but the Albert Street project that recently was shot down was not the right fit, he said.
Garcia said his job is to listen.
"I listen to my constituents," he said. "I take the time to listen and get all the input. This is about what the citizens want, and I'm just a representative for them. There may be candidates with more institutional knowledge, but that can be good and bad. Fresh eyes and fresh perspectives are important. Do we always have to go back to how things were?"
Daniel E. Bollman
Bollman, 58, owns East Arbor Architecture in East Lansing and has been on the city's planning commission for about eight years. He also is a teaching assistant at MSU.
Bollman ran unsuccessfully for council in 2021 and has applied for at least two council appointments.
"I think I'd be pretty good at it," he said. "It can be fairly said that no other member of the council has my experience in economic development, zoning, urbanism, my depth of knowledge on those."
Bollman has experience in historic preservation, previously serving as president of a historic preservation agency in Kalamazoo. He also has served on similar commissions in Ann Arbor and East Lansing and was appointed to the Michigan Historic Preservation Review Board in 2019.
The staffing exodus, or brain drain, is a big concern around town, he said.
"Only in the past year, we've lost about a century's worth of experience and institutional knowledge at city hall," he said. "They are trying to get to the bottom of the source of the problem, and we need to identify that... They are working their way back, (but) that's my primary concern.
The city also needs to address a housing shortage, and he'd like to make some of the amenities he's enjoyed in East Lansing available to more people, he said.
"My kids have walked to schools, and there are other amenities I am blessed to have access to," he said. "I would very much like to see those amenities be made available to more. We have to be careful in order to preserve the character of these neighborhoods. But there are ways this can be done ... and I know how to do it."
Eric Altmann
A psychology professor at MSU and a resident of East Lansing since 2000, Altmann, 59, served four years on council but lost a re-election bid in 2019 by a couple of votes.
"I considered myself retired from politics after my loss in 2019, but especially in the last couple of years, all hell broke loose at city hall, and I was worried we were heading for a failed municipality," he said. "When I was on council, the city ran pretty smoothly. I decided I have some experience, that I can help. That's why I got back into running."
Specifically, Altmann is alarmed by the recent exodus of city staffers and the largely unexplained firings of the longtime city manager and longtime city attorney. The council needs to be more transparent, he said.
"When council decided to fire the city manager about eight months ago, they didn't explain why," Almann said. "All they said is they were going in a different direction. This is a decision that has cost the city a staggering amount of institutional memory and thousands of dollars in a payout. They made exactly zero effort to explain why they did this."
The community is paying close attention to that issue, and they want to know what happened, he said.
"People are not just replacement parts," he said. "You have to build cohesion, you have to build trust. It's going to take years to accomplish that. The scope of the damage is kind of unimaginable."
Another priority for Altmann is climate action. The city needs to upgrade its infrastructure to cope with extreme weather events and reduce carbon emissions, he said. That could include converting the city's fleet to electric vehicles and installing solar panels on municipal buildings, he said.
The city also needs to bolster its police force and "go back to enforcing our laws," he said. "There are all sorts of things we have to do that we can't do until we've rebuilt the city workforce."
Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @KBPalm_lsj.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: East Lansing City Council race features eight seeking three seats
